


Elfroot Grows In The Shade

by queercyberpunk



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-07
Updated: 2015-06-07
Packaged: 2018-04-03 08:24:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4093906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queercyberpunk/pseuds/queercyberpunk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Warden-Commander Mahariel remembers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Elfroot Grows In The Shade

Tamlen is five and I am six when he first makes me a crown of braided elfroot. He weaves the springy stalks into a green halo and places it gently on the top of my head. We laugh and dart through the underbrush, our faces still bare and unmarked. Freckles are abound across the bridge of his nose, dotting the tops of his cheeks. I remember his smile, his ringing laughter that echoed back from the forest.

 

Tamlen is ten and I am eleven when he kisses me on the lips for the first time. It’s dark and we’re alone behind the aravels. It’s short, fleeting, and significant. We are silent under the moonlight afterwards, just staring as if we were really seeing one other for the first time. He takes my hand and we walk together around the edges of the forest, and he makes me another crown of elfroot. I tell him it’s waste of perfectly fine herbs--he tells me it could never be.

 

Tamlen is eleven and I am twelve when we receive our first bows. They are smooth and light and pliable in our hands. We grin at each other, feeling the pleasant bend of wood beneath our fingertips. The arrows they give us to practice with are blunted, but we feel powerful all the same. We strap them to our backs, so eager to grow old. To someday soon bear the _vallaslin_ , to carry quivers brimming with sharpened arrows.

 

Tamlen is fourteen and I am fifteen when we go on our first hunt. Tamlen trips in the underbrush and scares away our game, and I’m laughing so hard I can scarcely breathe. His unmarked face is a scalding red and he stops speaking to me. He can only last a day before he’s by my side again, braiding me another crown and letting our fingers intertwine.

 

Tamlen is seventeen and I am eighteen when I first receive my _vallaslin_. The process is painful and seems to carry on for an inordinate stretch. But I cannot cry, cannot flinch beneath the needle that marks me an adult. To do so would be shameful, and so I bite my lip until a crimson bead of blood settles in the corner of my mouth. Tamlen holds my hand and watches wordlessly.

 

Tamlen is eighteen and I am nineteen when we undress beneath a canopy of leaves. We’re nervous and quiet as we unhook and unclasp and unwind. Our leather armor sits in a neat pile beside us. Tamlen’s hands are gentle, unknowing as he touches my stomach and the jut of my hipbones. _Ma vhenan_ , he whispers. I whisper it back into his open mouth.

 

Tamlen is twenty and I am twenty-one when he touches his hand to that scintillating, ominous glass. I try to snatch him away, but he shakes me off. The last thing I remember are his screams.

 

Tamlen is gone and I am twenty-two, walking past the aravels like a ghost. I pick elfroot and put it in my pack to make salves with. We will have need of it when we descend to Witherfang's lair. I am crownless; I am heavy. Zevran doesn’t know what’s amiss, and he doesn’t ask. He just holds me in our tent that night, his breath soft against my neck.

 

Tamlen is gone and I am thirty, writing letters from my desk at Weisshaupt. I wonder if it will ever be easier. I wonder if he will be peaceful, freckled and warm, when Falon’Din guides me to him.

 

 


End file.
